Sunday, May 18, 2014

Mystery footprints found over 1km in Malaysia

A trail of large, humanlike footprints has been discovered near the Endau Rompin forest reserve.

The mysterious footprints were found by Sia Chwee Khim and her husband while they were driving along a tarred road through the region. There were several sets of tracks, including some that appeared to be made by tigers and elephants, but it was one set in particular that caught their attention.

Measuring 48cm long and 11cm wide, the prints, which resembled those of a human but were much larger, didn't seem to conform to any known species native to the area. The couple's daughter and her friends later decided to follow the trail to see how far it went and discovered that the footprints stretched along the road for more than 1km.

"We tried to mimic the steps but could not stretch our legs to match the distance of the stride," said Sia. "We also ruled out the possibility of the tracks being left by an elephant because they were quite oblong, like human feet, and had four protruding sharp toes."

The discovery of the prints follows on from the sighting of a large bipedal hominid by workers in Kampung Mawai in 2005. The men had attempted to follow the creature but eventually lost sight of it, but not before finding a set of large footprints in the mud measuring up to 50cm in length.